Brooklyn Marine's Body Found 74 Years After He Was Killed in WWII Battle

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — Brooklyn native Pvt. Joseph C. Carbone was killed in a brutal World War II battle on a Pacific island in 1943. It took 74 years to prove it.

Carbone, of the Second Marine Division, was one of more than 1,000 U.S. Marines who died in the Battle of Tarawa on the island of Betio on Nov. 20, 1943, according to military officials.

But his body was not found and, for decades, he was listed as missing in action. Now, he can finally come home.

On July 24, the U.S. Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced Carbone's remains has been found.

Carbone’s niece, Nancy Lewis of Bensonhurst, sent her DNA to military officials in 2015 in hopes of finding out what happened to her long lost uncle, she told the New York Post.

It was Lewis’ DNA that confirmed Carbone was one of the 35 Marines discovered in a mass grave on Betio by the nonprofit History Flight in 2015.

“I’m still in shock,” Lewis told the Post. “Oh my God, [my family] is all ecstatic about it.”

Carbone’s mother, also named Nancy, had maintained hope her son had survived because he’d once promised not to come home if he was disfigured in action, Carbone’s great-niece, Christine Caramanica Robinson, told the New York Post.

“That was kind of always her hope that she’d find him,” said Robinson.

Carbone’s niece Maryann Filippelli told the New York Post there will be a wake at the Scarpaci Funeral Home in Bensonhurst and he will be buried at Calvary Cemetery in Queens. The date is yet to be arranged.

She wishes Carbone’s mother could have lived to see her son’s return, Filippelli told the Post.

“My grandmother always said [her son was] going to walk through the door,” Filippelli said. “Little did we know he was going to come through the door in a different way.”

Carbone’s name, which can be found on one of the Walls of the Missing maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, will be marked with a rosette to indicate that he has been found, according to a Department of Defense statement.

Photo courtesy of Ingfbruno/Wikimedia Commons